{"id":78378,"date":"2021-05-31T00:11:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T00:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=78378"},"modified":"2021-05-31T02:04:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T02:04:48","slug":"penalty-costs-mclaughlin-as-drama-hits-indy-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=78378","title":{"rendered":"Penalty costs McLaughlin as drama hits Indy 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott McLaughlin<\/a> finished as the top rookie in an Indy 500<\/a> that saw Helio Castroneves claim a record-equaling fourth victory.<\/p>\n

But McLaughlin's day could have been so much better than an eventual 20th place finish, after he was handed a penalty for speeding in the pit lane midway through the race.<\/p>\n

At the time the Supercars champion<\/a> was on track for a top-10 finish, but couldn't get the car slowed down in time as he entered the pitlane, narrowly avoiding hitting the wall.<\/p>\n

The penalty dropped him out of contention, and he finished as one of the last cars on the lead lap.<\/p>\n

\"Scott<\/p>\n

"My race, look, really happy to get the Rookie of the Year honours," McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n

"I would have loved to have been a little higher. Feel like I could have been in the front group. Don't know if I would have won the race, but I certainly feel I could have been a factor in the top 10.<\/p>\n

"Bittersweet day for me. I'm proud of everybody on the Pennzoil car, it felt good. I've got many more to come, hopefully."<\/p>\n

McLaughlin said he learned plenty from his first outing at the Brickyard.<\/p>\n

"One mistake just eats you. You can't make mistakes here. It genuinely needs to be a perfect day. It's a place that really bites you when you don't think it's coming," he explained.<\/p>\n

\"Helio<\/p>\n

"I just made a simple mistake. Didn't quite pump my brake pedal up enough. Yeah, had a pretty stone cold set of rotors going into pit lane there. Couldn't pull up.<\/p>\n

"Thankfully no one was hurt because I came in there pretty hot."<\/p>\n

McLaughlin wasn't alone in having dramas in the pits, with a spin in pitlane costing Australia's former Indy 500 winner, Will Power.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 40-year-old also had brake issues coming in for a scheduled pitstop, eventually coming to a halt facing backwards. His pit crew were able to get him going again, but he finished in 30th position.<\/p>\n

Another to have problems in the pits was Graham Rahal, who lost his left-rear tyre as he exited the lane, sending him into the wall.<\/p>\n

That had dire consequences for Conor Daly, whose 40 laps in the lead was the most of any driver for the day.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/ConorDaly22\/status\/1399100751692156928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

Daly had no chance to avoid Rahal's stray tyre, the resulting damage to his front wing putting him out of contention. He was eventually classified 13th.<\/p>\n

"We led the most laps at the #Indy500," Daly tweeted after the race.<\/p>\n

"What a unbelievable feeling. Ultimately a tyre fell out of the sky ruining our day. Didn't even see it until it was too late."<\/p>\n

Castroneves took his fourth Indy 500 title, matching the record of Rick Mears, Al Unser Sr and AJ Foyt as the only four-time winners of the race. The 46-year-old Brazilian noted that Tom Brady (aged 43) won the Super Bowl earlier this year, while 50-year-old Phil Mickelson last week became the oldest player to win a golf major.<\/p>\n

"I've run two races this year and won two races, I'd say that's pretty good," said Castroneves, who also won the Daytona 24 Hours in January.<\/p>\n

With around 135,000 fans on hand, the Indy 500 was the largest sports crowd since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott McLaughlin finished as the top rookie in an Indy 500 that saw Helio Castroneves claim a record-equaling fourth victory. But McLaughlin's day could have […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78382,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78378\/revisions\/78382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}